I’ll tip my hat to the new revolution,
Smile and grin at the changes all around,
Pick up my guitar and play,
Just like yesterday and get on my knees and pray,
WE DON’T GET FOOLED AGAIN!!!
Is this the dawn of a new era for Ulster Rugby? To answer my question in my own opinionated way, I’ll wait and see. It is Autumn, a time when the trees turn to gorgeous shades of brown, red and gold, when the winds blow chilly and cold and those same leaves scuttle and flutter along the ground borne from aloft by thoughts of the oncoming winter.
It is a time when you put on a jumper or an extra T-shirt turn the heat up and start to adjust to the earlier darkening of the evening sky.
Yet at Ravenhill last night it seemed the Ulster team are playing as spring lambs with a carefree, confidence boosting, joie de vivre. I could swear the old hallowed ground, with its freshly painted, newly constructed steel and concrete stand echoed to the returning rumble of the legendary Ravenhill roar. It was like the rumble on the plains of the Okavanga delta and the end of the drought when the skies darken and raindrops slowly increase in intensity. It’s as if the animals sense a change, as they scurry about preparing for the lush vegetation that transforms that region into a riot of colour following the rain. The players and the UR publicity machine have long talked about the need to put in a performance on the pitch which would be met with a reciprocal effort from the fans and yet the team has so often fallen short of this lofty ideal. Last night it was almost like old times as the supporters advised the referee en masse, engaged with the players and their efforts on the pitch and sucked in the fresh attitude presented by the team. That is how it should be.
Pro rugby these days, for all it’s playbooks, video analysis, nutrition diets and physiological mantras, still boils down to a nub of core values starting with the tight five. Ulster’s tight five have begun to look like and play like a unit. Let’s start with this column’s adopted player. It is appropriate to a front row union website of course to adopt a tighthead, though Mr. Prod can relax, as it is to BJ Botha I refer. As a former pretty boy back, well maybe not a lot of the pretty, I have had little regard for the front row union… Those grizzled, muttering, finger pointing at each other, brain retainer headband wearing, masters of confrontation form the hub of the modern game.
Where some players have 2nd season syndrome brought on by a rapid rise in playing stature during the first, BJ seemed to suffer from an altogether different effect. He seems to have found it hard to adjust to a new culture, dialect and climate, not to mention a different style of rugby. Perhaps last season he had one eye on a potential place in the Springbok team against the Lions. Whatever the distraction last season he now seems fully focussed on Ulster and like his front five colleagues who had collective flat tyre against the Dragons he has grown in stature with each passing game.
Perhaps being subbed on the hour mark allows him psychologically to put in greater physical effort. He has begun to look the real deal we paid big bucks for. His burst on to the ball and pass to the oncoming Faloon, was pure Currie Cup were you see the props do this sort of thing on a regular basis. After some initial scrummaging hiccups with referees, those problems appear sorted and BJ doesn’t just anchor the scrum but is making his mark around the park as typified by his second half tackle and rebuttal of a Scarlets attack which forced a turnover and scrum to Ulster. BJ’s commitment and resolve has rubbed off on the rest of the front five with Ed O’Donoghue the front five’s Mr. Dependable. One doesn’t wish to get carried away but if there is one slight nagging feeling it revolves round Ryan Caldwell. Caldwell clearly is passionate about playing for Ulster and that passion allied to natural aggression makes him a walking 3 point penalty bomb.
Musing on the front five, it would be remiss of me not to mention the Franno lambasted, Tom Court! I saw this on the Munsterfans site last night.
‘I swear I’ve seen Tom Court “making hard yards” in the open. Tis like seeing Lord Lucan riding in standing position, one leg on Shergar, the other on a Yeti, taking the road to Xanadu*
*quite unlikely.’
Perhaps St. Franno of Pissisi ghosts on Munsterfans but unlike the writer above I swear I saw Tom Court carve up the midfield, scrum like a mullah looking to muller rather than be mullered and generally played very well. Had Franno seen this, it is likely he would have smiled that mirthless grin of his and claimed he was really firing Court and the Ulster team up. Franno is really our secret weapon. I implore the Ulster coaching team to play Franno’s comments from last week just before the team is let out of the cage and on to the pitch next Friday night. If you imagine written words on a screen emanating from Franno’s mouth last week you can always imagine them reverse back into his orifice causing him to choke this week. A nice thought if your that way minded!
The front five have fronted up and have begun to lay down a platform for others to play off. When talking about back rows, I profess I am not remotely knowledgeable but I believe the key word is balance. For me an example of a balanced back row brings to mind the Irish trio of Denis McBride, Eric Miller and Pat O’Hara. Here you had the destructive blindside in Pat O’Hara, a ball playing no.8 and the forager on the deck who could also tackle and link with the backs at no.7.
The Ulster back row presents many of these qualities and more, with perhaps experience the only vital ingredient missing. In Ferris they have the destructive no.6 who can also carry the ball and a hard running and skilful no.8 in Diack. Whilst at open side, this season’s star player Faloon represents all that is best in a groundhog no. 7. It is this balance to the back row that is key in my opinion. The O’s back row of Collins, Jones and Holah demonstrated the gulf in experience against Ulster’s youthful trio, yet one played as a unit and for each other whilst the other, the Ospreys, played as individuals.
The half back and 12 positions appear to be gelling better than Gavin Henson’s brylcream hairdo, with Boss having had his best game in an Ulster shirt for awhile. Here he provided quick ball all evening and looked sharp round the fringes whilst I noticed that iHumph is being protected defensively in the way Munster protect O’Gara. Wallace at inside centre is providing the experience off which others can play. The kicking issue looks like it is being addressed but one does have a nagging feeling about close matches as Castaway missed what can only be described as an absolute sitter last night which on another occasion could prove critical.
Nagusa is Ulster’s most improved player this season and continues to astound whilst Trimble was the pick of the rest. I did notice last night Cave ran a line a few times about ten metres in from the touchline which is where roughly he receives the pass from the backs inside him. This has the effect of cramping the space the wingers/full back work in, forcing them to come in on the switch or Cave to cut inside into the path of the defenders coming across the pitch. This is something Ulster could work at in trying not to crab at fly half or at 9, thus closing down the space for the outside players to work in.
Defence looks to be better organised these days with the Scarlets having the appearance of team being slowly throttled at the neck causing them to constrict in the width of their play. It took them until the last 5 minutes to finally catch up with Ulster, though by then the Ulster team were turning their thoughts towards next Friday’s first Heineken match against Bath.
To paraphrase the UAFC’s Mr. R. H. Hero, it is difficult to tell whether Ulster were very good or the Scarlets poor. I tend towards the latter thought, though there was an element of Ulster’s play that made them hard to live with competitively.
Thankfully not many Ulster supporters dare to get carried away, that at last here is the real deal. Thankfully there is a realism which is that, although we are momentarily at the top of the League table we will, come the end of season still be in with a shout of the play offs. If we can put teams like the Scarlets away like we did last night whilst also scrapping points off the big hitters like the O’s and can maintain the intensity of recent play through to next May, then we will surely be there or thereabouts.
Swallows, summer, flashes in the pan and all the other clichés can be delivered in bucketfuls and have been over recent years. Yet there is an understated and for me, ill defined feeling about the way Ulster are playing that gives rise to decent competitive prospects over the course of the season. The Heineken hasn’t been the nuggets of gold in the pan in recent times and it looms as a huge test of the team and the supporters belief.
Expectations based on the frustrations of the last 3 seasons are naturally low in this competition nor should they be anything else in my opinion. As I said earlier, maintaining form against the Magners League’s lower ranked teams whilst picking off points the ML’s big hitters could see us in the mix for an ML playoff spot. To do that Ulster need to maintain intensity levels from game to game whilst also maintaining a healthy playing resource base. In fairness there is no reason why intensity levels can’t be kept up as the Autumn break approaches when players can recharge the batteries before the pre-Christmas and New Year campaign’s resume at club level.
So for now I’ll reserve the right to enjoy the moment, remain cautious and hope and pray: I don’t get fooled again!!!
As BJ Botha might well enquire, ‘who are the Who?’
Corrections, comments or questions?